The National Rifle Association (NRA) has again come out with another insincere plan to curb gun violence in our schools. This latest proposal to put armed guards in all schools was less than helpful and in fact ignores reality, but then again this is coming from the NRA.

Their statement disregards all evidence to the contrary; totally denying the fact that due to our glut of firearms, the United States has by far the highest homicide and suicide rate due to gun violence (greater than 30,000 deaths annually) than any other civilized country in the world with reasonable gun safety laws. Statistics also show that schools are actually very safe places, with far more gun fatalities occurring on the streets of our cities and in our own homes.

We would have a greater impact in decreasing gun fatalities by having armed guards assigned to our homes; neither do I hear them calling on Congress to put more police in our crime ridden cities. Unfortunately some in Congress are actually considering making federal dollars available to schools that want to hire armed security. With all our concerns over our national debt, this would be a huge financial mistake for very little, if any, real security gains.

If a local community feels that it is necessary, they should vote to fund it; this should not be a responsibility of the Federal government. We need to propose measures which will reduce gun violence in our society, not provide the false impression of securing our schools with more “guns”, but reducing the chance that deranged individuals will obtain them and actually find a way to use them. Although the NRA loves to quote that the assault weapons ban was ineffective, before the ban was abolished, there were no massacres on the scale of Aurora and Newtown.

Unless we act now the next massacre may well be worse. Send e-mail to your Representative and Senators asking them to, at the very least: 1. Require a “universal” criminal background check for every gun sold in America; 2. Make gun trafficking a federal crime, with real penalties for “straw purchasers” (those who arm criminals).